J-K government raid printing presses, snap cable TV networks

A police team raided the Greater Kashmir printing press at Rangreth on the outskirts of Srinagar city. While the newspapers are not available anywhere in the city that is under curfew for the eighth consecutive day, Greater Kashmir, in its online edition, reported that the police arrested its three employees from the printing press.

“More than 20 policemen barged into GK printing Press and directed the employees to stop printing the newspaper. Within no time they stopped the machines and pulled out the plates,” Greater Kashmir reported in its online edition. “The Policemen seized the plates of Greater Kashmir and more than 50,000 printed copies of Kashmir Uzma and closed down the GKC printing press. Cops misbehaved with the employees present there and snatched their cell phones. The employees who tried to resist were beaten up by the policemen”.

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Police has also raided several other printing presses. Reports say that a police team raided the KT printing press at Humhama in Srinagar suburbs, forced the employees to stop printing and seized the newspapers that had already been printed. More than eight newspapers are printed from the KT Printing Press.

“It is too much now. They (government) raided the printing press and took away the (printing) plates with them,” Hayat Ahmad Bhat, the owner of Kashmir Reader that prints from KT printing press told The Indian Express.

The government has also forced the TV cable network owners to stop transmission in the Valley. An owner of a cable network told The Indian Express that on Friday late night, a police posse in civvies arrived at their office and forced them to switch off the transmission. “We have four to five lakh subscribers in several districts including Srinagar,” he said. “For the last few days, they were forcing us to switch off the news channels but when we didn’t succumb to pressure, they came to our office and switched it off”.

Ishfaq Gowhar, who heads the J-K media network in Kashmir province, said that the government doesn’t want us to show what is happening on the ground. “We have been asked to show restrain in the (news) bulletins,” Gowhar said.